Hard Choices

by Hillary Rodham Clinton

  March 2012 marked the one-year anniversary of the uprising in Syria, and the UN estimated that the death toll by then stood at more than eight thousand. Kofi Annan was methodically meeting with all the players, including Assad himself, trying to thread the diplomatic needle and end the conflict before the casualties mounted any higher. In the middle of the month he unveiled a six-point plan. It was similar to what the Arab League had tried earlier in the year. Kofi called on the Assad regime to pull back its military forces and silence their heavy weapons, allow peaceful demonstrations and access to Syria for humanitarian aid and journalists, and begin a political transition that addressed the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people. In an effort to win Russian agreement, he proposed that the UN Security Council ratify his plan in a less weighty “statement” rather than a full resolution. That helped reassure Moscow that it would not be used as a legal basis for military intervention later on. The Western powers went along because it meant finally getting the Security Council on record. In the statement the Council called for a cease-fire and directed Kofi to “facilitate a Syrian-led political transition to a democratic, plural political system . . . including through commencing a comprehensive political dialogue between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the Syrian opposition.”

  Now that it had gotten on board with the statement, Russia leaned on Assad to accept Kofi’s terms, which he did at the end of March. We had seen how much his word meant, so no one was counting on a cease-fire actually taking hold. As the April 10 deadline approached, the violence showed no signs of slowing. Syrian military forces even fired into Turkey and Lebanon, which raised the specter of a wider regional conflict. But then some measure of quiet did come. The cease-fire was never full or comprehensive, but there was a lull in the fighting. Like the Arab League before it, the UN dispatched teams of observers to monitor conditions on the ground.

  Again, however, despite his pledges, Assad never took any credible steps to implement the rest of Kofi’s plan, and the fragile cease-fire soon began to unravel. After about a month Kofi reported “serious violations,” and in late May there was a massacre of more than a hundred villagers in Houla, half of them children. Russia and China continued to prevent the Security Council from compelling compliance with the six-point plan or attaching any consequences for violations. It now looked as if their earlier assent had been little more than posturing intended to ease international condemnation.

  I began encouraging Kofi to take another tack. Perhaps he should organize an international conference to focus on transition planning. Without further diplomatic progress, the tattered cease-fire would collapse completely, and we’d be left back at square one. In the first weeks of June, Kofi visited me in Washington, and we spoke often by phone as he shuttled between Moscow, Tehran, Damascus, and other capitals in the region. He agreed that it was time to take the next diplomatic steps and began formulating plans for a summit at the end of June.

  In mid-June, increasing violence forced the UN to suspend its observer patrols. I accompanied President Obama to the G-20 meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, where we sat down with Russian President Putin for about two hours. Syria was the principal topic of discussion.

  President Obama outlined our position: Either the international community could sit on the sidelines and watch Syria be torn apart by civil and proxy warfare, with all the resulting negative consequences for regional stability, or Russia could use its influence to encourage a viable political solution. Putin claimed that he had no particular love for Assad, who was causing Moscow quite a headache, and he also professed to have no real leverage with Damascus. I think he personally identified with the challenges Assad faced from internal opposition, and he warned about the growing threat from extremists among the opposition and pointed to how messy transitions had become in Libya, Egypt, and, of course, Iraq.

  These were all convenient rationalizations for blocking action while continuing to supply Assad with money and arms. Even though I did not trust Russia’s actions or words, I knew we had no alternative but to exhaust every diplomatic option. “Go back to the Russians and say your team is going to lay down a transition plan, and Russia can be part of the discussion or left on the sidelines,” I advised Kofi after the Putin meeting. As the date of his proposed conference in Geneva approached, I worked closely with Kofi to develop specific language that we hoped might be able to gain consensus. In a curtain-raising opinion piece in the Washington Post, he made his expectations clear. He wanted Syria’s neighbors and the world’s great powers to “commit to act in unison to end the bloodshed and implement the six-point plan, avoiding further militarization of the conflict.” He added, “I expect all who attend Saturday’s meeting to agree that a Syrian-led transition process must be achieved in accordance with clear principles and guidelines.”

  On the day before the start of the summit, I urged Kofi to stand by the principles he was proposing: “I understand the tweak here, the clarification there. I can live with that. But the core idea that has to come out of the meeting is that the international community, including Russia and China, are united behind a political transition that would go to a democratic future. That’s sacrosanct. The details can be batted around but we have to keep that core.” Kofi thought that, in the end, the Russians would get on board. “They said change can come but it must be orderly,” he told me. I was not as optimistic, but agreed we had to test.

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  I arrived in Geneva shortly after 1:00 in the morning of June 30 after a flight from Russia, where I had attended an economic conference of Asian-Pacific nations. Over a long dinner in St. Petersburg, I had pressed Lavrov on the need to support Kofi’s efforts and bring the conflict to an end. I knew the Russians would never be comfortable explicitly calling for Assad to leave office, but, with our help, Kofi had crafted an elegant solution. He was proposing the establishment of a transitional unity government exercising full executive power, which would be broadly inclusive but exclude “those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardize stability and reconciliation.” That was code for excluding Assad. The Russians wanted words that papered over the difference between us (Assad must go) and them (we’re not going to force him to go) and leave it up to the Syrians to sort out.

  Lavrov took a hard line. He claimed Russia wanted a political resolution, but he wouldn’t agree to anything that might make that possible. I pointed out that if we failed to reach an agreement the next day in Geneva based on Kofi’s proposal for an orderly transition, the UN-led diplomatic effort would collapse, extremists would gain ground, and the conflict would escalate. The Arabs and the Iranians would pour in even more weapons. Sectarian tensions and a growing flood of refugees would further destabilize Syria’s neighbors, especially Lebanon and Jordan. I still believed the Assad regime would eventually fall, but it would take much more of the Syrian state and the region with it. Such a scenario wouldn’t serve Russia’s interests or preserve its influence. But Lavrov wouldn’t budge. Boarding my plane to Switzerland, I knew we’d have to continue pressing the Russians and working to get everyone else on board with a text.

  In Geneva I met first with British Foreign Secretary William Hague and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to take stock of what we wanted to achieve at the conference. Hague and I then talked with Hamad bin Jassim of Qatar, and Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoğlu, who pushed us to consider supporting the rebels with military aid regardless of the outcome in Geneva. They knew the United States and Britain were not prepared to do that but wanted to be heard nonetheless.

  UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon presided over the opening session of the meeting of what he called (optimistically) the Action Group on Syria with Foreign Ministers from the five permanent members of the Security Council, along with Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and the European Union. Neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia was invited.

  At the start of the meeting, Kofi
outlined his goals: “We are here to agree on guidelines and principles for a Syrian-led political transition that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people. And we are here to agree on actions that each and every one of us must take to turn these objectives into reality on the ground, including consequences for non-compliance.” He presented a document that would enshrine the transition he was proposing.

  I welcomed Kofi’s plan to pave the way for a democratic transition and “a post-Assad future.” The United States shared his goal of a democratic, pluralistic Syria that would uphold the rule of law and respect the universal rights of all its people and every group, regardless of ethnicity, sect, or gender. We also agreed that it was important to maintain the integrity of the Syrian state and its institutions, particularly enough of the security infrastructure to prevent the kind of chaos we had seen in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein and the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and government. For a new agreement actually to be implemented, I said, it would need a UN Security Council resolution “imposing real and immediate consequences for non-compliance.” In addition nations with influence on the warring parties would have to pressure them to accept and support the transition. That meant that Russia should use its clout with the regime, while the Arabs and the West would do the same with the rebels to get them all on board.

  We preferred stronger language than what Kofi was suggesting on certain points (for example, we would have liked a more direct reference to Assad’s departure), but, in the interest of simplicity and consensus, we agreed to accept the document as it was written, and we urged all other nations to follow suit.

  The public portion of international meetings like this is typically scripted. Each country and organization states its position, and it can be rather boring. The action generally starts when the cameras leave. That’s what happened here.

  We left the ceremonial hall and crowded into a long rectangular room with Kofi and Ban Ki-moon at the head and the Ministers, each with a single aide, arranged on each side of two facing tables. Emotions ran high; at one point Ministers were shouting at one another and even pounding the table. Eventually the commotion settled into a running argument between me and Lavrov. That’s where this had always been headed.

  Eventually it seemed as if the Russians might accept a transitional governing body, if we could get the language right. Lavrov balked at Kofi’s phrase excluding those who would “undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardize stability and reconciliation.” I offered a new formulation to break the deadlock. The transitional governing body would include members of both the government and the opposition chosen “on the basis of mutual consent.” Finally the Russians agreed.

  It’s easy to get lost in the semantics, but words constitute much of a diplomat’s work, and I knew they would shape how the rest of the world received our agreement and how it was understood on the ground in Syria. I offered “mutual consent” as a way out because, in practice, there was no way Assad would pass such a test; the opposition would never consent to him. We retained the phrase “full executive powers” to describe the mandate for the proposed transitional governing body; that meant Assad and his cronies would be stripped of their authority. To strengthen our case, I made sure the agreement explicitly put the Syrian security and intelligence services, along with “all governmental institutions,” under the control of the transitional governing body and called for “top leadership that inspires public confidence” (another standard Assad would never meet).

  I insisted that we should go next to the Security Council and pass what’s called a Chapter VII resolution, which would authorize tough sanctions in the event of noncompliance. Lavrov was noncommittal on that, but he agreed to use Russia’s influence to support Kofi and his plan and joined all of us in signing on the dotted line of what we had negotiated. Then we all went out to explain it to the world.

  Trouble started almost right away. The press missed the intent and plain meaning of “mutual consent” and read it as an admission that Assad could stay in power. The New York Times filed a gloomy report under the headline “Talks Come Up with Plan for Syria, but Not for Assad’s Exit.” Lavrov did his best to fuel this interpretation. “There is no attempt to impose any kind of a transition process,” he told the press. “There are no prior conditions to the transfer process and no attempt to exclude any group from the process.” That was technically true but blatantly misleading.

  Kofi dismissed Lavrov’s spin. “I will doubt that the Syrians—who have fought so hard for their independence, to be able to say how they’re governed and who governs them—will select people with blood on their hands to lead them,” he said. I backed him up: “What we have done here is to strip away the fiction that [Assad] and those with blood on their hands can stay in power. The plan calls for the Assad regime to give way to a new transitional governing body that will have full governance powers.” Over time the opposition and civilians in Syria came to see the Geneva Communiqué for what it was: a blueprint for Assad’s departure.

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  It was a bad summer for Syria. After signing the agreement in Geneva, the Russians ultimately refused to back the Chapter VII resolution at the UN or exert any real leverage with Assad. Although disappointing, their behavior was hardly surprising.

  In August, Kofi resigned in disgust. “I did my best and sometimes the best is not always good enough,” he told me. “I don’t know what else you could’ve done, given the intransigence of the Russians on the Security Council,” I replied. And I told him, “I can’t imagine how we could’ve done any more than what we did. At least in Geneva we had a framework, but they were just immovable.” Meanwhile the casualties in Syria climbed into the tens of thousands, and the crisis spun further out of control.

  I was growing increasingly frustrated but kept at it. When we ran into the Russian-made brick wall at the UN, I kept pressing forward along non-UN tracks, holding more meetings of the Friends of the Syrian People, which by now had expanded to about a hundred nations. The challenge was to convince all the parties—Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers on the one side, the rebels and the Arab states on the other—that a final decisive military victory was impossible and they should focus on reaching a diplomatic solution. That was going to take a great deal of carefully and consistently applied pressure. The United States and our partners steadily ratcheted up sanctions on the Assad regime. We froze their assets, imposed travel bans, and restricted trade. The Syrian economy was in free-fall. But with Russia and Iran bankrolling Assad’s war effort, the fighting continued unabated.

  Assad kept escalating the use of air power and began firing Scud missiles to overwhelm the rebels, which killed even more civilians. The opposition, despite efforts by the Europeans, Arabs, and the United States, remained in disarray. We provided rebels with “nonlethal” aid, including communications gear and rations, starting in March 2012, but we held the line against contributing arms and training. There were many voices, particularly among the Syrian opposition, crying out for us to support them as we had supported the Libyan rebels. But Syria was not Libya.

  The Assad regime was much more entrenched than Qaddafi, with more support among key segments of the population, more allies in the region, a real Army, and far more robust air defenses. Unlike in Libya, where the rebel Transitional National Council had controlled large swaths of territory in the east, including Benghazi, the country’s second largest city, the opposition in Syria was disorganized and diffuse. It struggled to hold territory and to coalesce around a single command structure. And, of course, there was one other crucial difference: Russia was blocking any move at the UN on Syria, in large measure to prevent a replay of Libya.

  In the early days of the fighting many had assumed Assad’s fall was inevitable. After all, the previous leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen were all gone. It was hard to imagine that, after so much bloodshed and getting a taste of freedom, the Syrian people would just settle down
and agree to accept dictatorial rule once again. But now, in the second year of civil war, it seemed increasingly possible that Assad would hang on, even if it meant tearing the country apart and fomenting destructive sectarian strife. Syria could be doomed to a long and bloody stalemate. Or it could become a failed state, with the structure of government collapsing and chaos ensuing. And the longer the conflict dragged on, the more danger there was that the instability would destabilize vulnerable neighbors, like Jordan and Lebanon, and the more likely it was that extremists would build support inside Syria.

  I started referring to Syria as a “wicked problem,” a term used by planning experts to describe particularly complex challenges that confound standard solutions and approaches. Wicked problems rarely have a right answer; in fact, part of what makes them wicked is that every option appears worse than the next. Increasingly that’s how Syria appeared. Do nothing, and a humanitarian disaster envelops the region. Intervene militarily, and risk opening Pandora’s box and wading into another quagmire, like Iraq. Send aid to the rebels, and watch it end up in the hands of extremists. Continue with diplomacy, and run head-first into a Russian veto. None of these approaches offered much hope of success. But we had to keep at it.

  As it became clear that the Geneva effort was stalemated, I and others on the Obama national security team began exploring what it would take to stand up a carefully vetted and trained force of moderate Syrian rebels who could be trusted with American weapons. There are real risks to such an approach. In the 1980s, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan armed Afghan rebels called mujahideen who helped end the Soviet occupation of their country. Some of those fighters, including Osama bin Laden, went on to form al Qaeda and turned their sights on targets in the West. Nobody wanted a repeat of that scenario.